Statement from State Auditor's Office on motion to dismiss Missouri Alliance for Freedom lawsuit

November 30, 2017

On Wednesday (Nov. 29), attorneys representing the State Auditor moved to dismiss the lawsuit filed by a politically-connected Kansas City law firm on behalf of Missouri Alliance for Freedom. The lawsuit stems from broad records requests related to the audit of the Missouri Department of Revenue and communications within the Auditor's office, and was filed 14 days before the office was due to deliver thousands of documents.

The State Auditor's Office was fulfilling these requests according to an established schedule. On Nov. 16 — two weeks prior to the due date for the final and remaining records — Missouri Alliance for Freedom asked that the State Auditor's Office discontinue fulfilling their original request and concurrently filed 13 new open records requests.

The State Auditor's Office issued the following statement:

"To date, we have provided more than 24,000 pages of documents at no charge in response to records requests by Missouri Alliance for Freedom. We will continue to comply with their additional requests and remain committed to transparency.

This sudden disinterest in records previously requested strongly suggests this lawsuit is not about obtaining information. Instead, it appears to be a deliberate effort to intimidate the State Auditor and obstruct a thorough review of state agencies, specifically the audit of the timeliness of tax refunds. Despite these ongoing efforts to stall Auditor Galloway's work to expose misuse of taxpayer dollars, she remains committed to tearing down the walls of secrecy surrounding state business by investigating fraud and mismanagement at all levels."

Attorneys also filed a motion on the continuation of legal proceedings in light of the new records requests. Read the recent motions in the case here and here.